


I Would Talk 500 Miles

by CGotAnAccount



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Dorks in Love, First Dates, Fluff, M/M, SHEITH - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 04:59:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16422851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CGotAnAccount/pseuds/CGotAnAccount
Summary: In hindsight, Keith really shouldn't have been surprised.Pidge had been shifty all day, guarding her datapad like a dragon, and Hunk had begun humming loudly while fleeing a room every time he entered. Lance had taken it upon himself to follow Keith around for the better part of the afternoon chattering inanely at the back of his head. Keith greatly preferred Hunk's strange avoidance.





	I Would Talk 500 Miles

**Author's Note:**

> *DJ Kahled voice* Another One?

In hindsight, Keith really shouldn't have been surprised.

Pidge had been shifty all day, guarding her datapad like a dragon, and Hunk had begun humming loudly while fleeing a room every time he entered. Lance had taken it upon himself to follow Keith around for the better part of the afternoon chattering inanely at the back of his head. Keith greatly preferred Hunk's strange avoidance.

The entire time Keith had been trying to train on the gladiator, Lance had been leaning against the wall of the training deck. Just talking. About nothing.

“And then there's my sister, don't even get me started about her.” Lance chattered animatedly, picking at his cuticles.

“I won't.” Keith grunts, ducking under a swipe from the staff aimed at his skull.

Lance steamrolls over him unperturbed, “She's got the biggest mouth in the world. My niece and nephew definitely take after her. That's where they get their curly hair too, it's a lot sproingier than mine is, but she doesn't condition it properly so it's not quite as silky.” He pauses, running his fingers through his hair thoughtfully, “But Marco's might be softer. Mama always said he cost her the most on the water bill and-”

Keith tunes him out, dodging another swing before landing a kick into the knee joint of the bot, staggering it before plunging his blade into the visor. The bot powers off and crashs to the floor as Keith yanks the blade back out and wanders over to his water bottle and towel.

He tries valiantly to continue ignoring Lance's stream of babble as he wanders into the locker room to shower but it Just. Keeps. Going.

“Oh are you all done? You should probably shower before tonight, you're absolutely right.” Lance pauses, flinching at Keith before realizing he wasn't paying any attention at all. Still safe. “Especially because you always smell particularly bad after you do any sort of training.” Nice recovery. “Not that you don't smell bad all the time, because you do if you ask me. I think it's the mullet. There's so much hair back there that it just musts together and never dries out or anything. Or maybe that's just how the 80's smelled, who knows.”

Keith hums noncommittally when he registers the droning stop, hoping futilely that it's over.

He's never been that lucky. Lance's voice echoes off the tiles in the locker room from where he sits on the bench, babbling over the sound of running water as Keith showers in the adjacent room.

“Honestly I'm pretty sure that Coran was actually trying to sabotage our mission with whatever he made for dinner last night. The burnt slug thing had it's little skittery legs attached still and if I learned anything in middle school biology it's that you don't eat things that have more than four legs.”

Keith considers his chances of actually dying if he tries to drown himself in the shower. With his luck he'd just fall into a coma where he could hear but not move and it'd be Lance's voice for the rest of his life. He shuts the water off and dresses quickly, trying to breeze past Lance and out of the locker room to sanity.

No dice.

Lance's long legs quickly match his stride, his hands in his pockets and his head tilted to the ceiling as he talks. And talks... And talks.

“I bet if I had more than four legs I would suddenly produce a poisonous secretion when ingested too. Pidge said that's not how it works and something about correlation and causation, but I'm pretty sure that knee joints are each a little poisonous.” He cracks his jaw and looks at Keith inquisitively, “Why else would all the creepy things have so many of them right?” Keith doesn't even look at him, striding just a little bit faster. Lance gets a thoughtful look on his face, keeping up effortlessly. “But I guess Haggar only has one set of knees and she's pretty creepy...”

Keith's eye begins twitching impressively.

“Lance.” he grits out.

“But then again I've never seen her legs period, so maybe she really has like eight legs under that robe like a spider but all upright with like half a torso and she just skitters around really smoothly.” He shudders, “That might make her even worse, what if she is and she spins a web? Spiders have poison right? And they have a lot of knees, Pidge is totally wrong.”

Keith's face is slowly turning a lovely shade of puce.

“That's venom.” he mutters, instantly flinching when Lance smirks at his interaction. Dammit.

“Same difference.” Lance chirps, “If I ate her I'd die either way.”

Keith can't really argue with that logic, not that Lance gives him a chance to.

“Anyway, back to dinner.” Lance steamrolls onward, “Hunk was going to make dinner tonight because Coran said he had leftovers of that bug thing, which – duh, it was disgusting.” His whole face scrunches up and Keith hopes it gets stuck that way. “He mentioned something about goo that tasted like potatoes. Or tomatoes. Or something, it ended in -oes I think.” He pauses, visibly thinking before flapping one hand dismissively. “Anyway it doesn't matter. The point is that tonight's dinner is going to be better than last night's dinner but there's still some time between right now and dinner so what are your plans?” He looks at Keith expectantly.

Keith dares to flick a glance over at his face, still walking as fast as he possibly can without actually running. “I was going to go drown myself.” he deadpans.

Lance perks right up, snagging his elbow. “Oh fantastic! I was going to go swimming too, here we can go together right now, I'm sure there are already trunks by the pool and if there aren't it sure is good exercise to walk all that way there anyway.” He tugs Keith bodily down the next corridor, completely ignoring the way Keith is dragging his feet as much as physically possible without buckling his knees entirely like a stubborn toddler.

He's not sure what he did to deserve this today. He's certain he remembered to feed Kosmo, and he told his Mom he loved her when they last spoke. He hasn't tried to punch anyone in like a year, he even helped Griffin tweak the sims for a more realistic dogfight setting. He's been so good...

Lance palms the entry to the pool and ushers Keith in ahead of him.

“This one is even a right-side up pool!” he crows, as if Keith can't see it literally right in front of him. Getting closer right in front of him. A little too close right in front of him? “Oops!” Lance yells, tripping dramatically over his own feet as he windmills his arms. “I have slipped!”

His windmilling catches Keith on the shoulder, knocking him off balance and directly into the shallow water. He just sighs on the way down.

“Oh heavens!” Lance wails like a civil war maiden, “Now you're all wet and we didn't even get to swim.” He pouts, then shrugs exaggeratedly, “I guess we'll have to walk all the back to your room to get clothes. It's awfully cold in here after all.”

Keith grits his teeth in the thigh-deep water, he can feel the vein in his face starting to throb.

“It's fine. I'll dry, let's just go to dinner.” Lance can't talk with his mouth full.

Lance's brows furrow at the ceiling as he says again, louder. “But it's AWFULLY COLD in here.” The air conditioning begins blowing full blast right onto Keith's wet cat impression. “You should really change.” Lance's smug face is going to get him killed.

Except that Keith has resigned himself to the knowledge that he did actually die in that crash, and this is some form of belated hell. He pulls himself out of the pool, now shivering, and trudges back toward the hallway. He wants to weep when Lance follows him, still talking.

“Anyway, it's actually really good that you fell into the pool because your choice of casual attire is honestly atrocious and I'm pretty sure no one has had the heart to tell you before but, Keith-” he halts Keith's sodden march forward with a hand on his shoulder and an earnest look, “-as your real friend I want you to know that I won't let you walk around looking like that without knowing any better.”

Keith just blinks at him before turning around and squelching onward.

Lance knows he's just too overwhelmed by the show of friendship to respond.

“So in honor of us being best friends I'll help you pick out clothing to wear on your d-” he cuts off with a strangled cough, “-inner. Dinner. The dinner that we're all going to, collectively. As a unit. Wearing our presentable clothing.” Saved it again.

Keith continues leaving a dripping trail onward to their rooms.

“So I was really thinking some sort of color on you would be good. Like one that's not black. Like one that has both shade variance options and tint.”

“I have light black and dark black...” Keith mutters.

Lance ignores him. “So maybe red, because I know you have at least one red thing, and you can't wear blue in case it looks good on you because blue is my color and I'm not going to have you beat me at blue too.” He nods decisively enough for both of them. “Allura can wear blue though, since I guess we kinda share Blue now and she's technically been wearing the blue on her dress for ten thousand years so she has a little more dibs than I do, plus it looks great with her eyes...” he trails off stupidly for a moment and Keith cuts a glance over at the sudden blissful silence, nearly ready to weep in joy.

Until he continues like the silence never happened. Maybe it hadn't. Maybe Keith has begun hallucinating nothing, he is in hell after all.

“But your eyes are that funky purpley whatever nonsense according to Shiro,” Keith tunes back in at Shiro's name, “So maybe we can go with that as well. I guess it'll depend on what you actually have in your closet and what we can steal from around here if you have nothing but those ugly go-go boots.” He shakes his head disgustedly. “For someone who has such a cool and stylish mother, minus the rat-tail, you sure look like you raided the dumpster behind a disco.”

Keith staggers the last few feet to his door, lunging inside and trying to slap it shut behind him. It nearly shuts before catching on the toe of Lance's sneaker in the crack. So close...

“Rude,” Lance chirps as he heads over to Keith's closet and begins pulling things out. Keith thinks about making a break for it now, frigid air be damned. “Don't try it,” comes Lance's muffled voice from the closet, “I'll cry.”

Keith sputters.

“You'll cry?” he edges toward the door.

Lance snaps his head up from a pile of uniform coats. “I'll cry and I won't stop crying all night.” He puts his best puppy dog eyes on and honest to god tears begin welling up. Keith doesn't give a shit, but he can't handle whatever sound might come with it.

“Okay! Stop!” he growls, “Just hurry up! It's freezing.”

Lance sniffs, wounded. “You can't rush perfection,” he cracks one eye open and peers at Keith disdainfully, “Especially on problem cases.”

Keith shucks his soggy clothing down to his boxers and wraps up in the blanket on his bed, grumbling.

“Whatever. Just pick something so we can eat.” He yanks at a thread on the bed sulkily and mentally tallies all the things everyone else owes him for dealing with Lance this long. He can only imagine the sweet silence they've enjoyed all afternoon. Lance is still talking from the closet but it's thankfully so garbled he can't make out the words.

He's still imagining the silence so hard he doesn't register the clothing flying at him until a pair of jeans nails him in the face, shortly followed by a balled up shirt to the gut.

“That's what you get for ignoring the Sharpshooter.”

Lance shoots a wheezing Keith finger guns before walking over to the bed, ripping the blanket burrito off him and yanking a dark purple henley shirt over his head. Keith sputters and flails as he's blinded by cloth and shoved forward, one arm being tugged through the sleeves as he tries to slap at where he thinks Lance's head is with the other.

“Get off of me!” he snarls, “I can dress myself!”

“Clearly not.” Lance snarks back, pointing at the 'no' pile on the floor. “Now hurry up and put those on, I'm starving.”

Keith might actually kill him.

“Patience yields focus...” He mutters darkly to himself as he tugs the jeans up and fishes his other arm into the sleeve. Everything is very tight, but he has to admit he looks decent when he catches his reflection in the mirror. Lance is patting himself on the back and prattling about color theory. Keith is getting better at ignoring him.

The walk to their private dining hall is blessedly short and nearly silent save for the occasional random exclamations from Lance.

“We sure are getting close!” he nearly shouts into the hallway, “Dinner is only about a minute or so away at this current walking pace.” Keith starts walking faster just in case whatever Lance has today is contagious. “Perhaps slightly less now!” comes the yell from behind him.

Keith lets out the breath he'd been holding in all day as he rounds the doorway into the safety of other people for Lance to bother.

Lance nearly slams into his back as he stops short.

The table is only set for two and there are floating drones holding up twinkling fairy lights around the ceiling. Pidge dims the lighting with a grin and a thumbs up as he walks in.

“Mood lighting.” She winks, slipping out the door on the other side as Hunk walks in with a silver dome and a bottle of wine.

“Sir,” he bows slightly with a smile, “Tonight we have a special reserve for you, complete with totally normal human food – steak and vegetables with baked mac and cheese on the side.” He removes the dome with a flourish, bowing again before ducking out the way he had come in.

Keith's jaw still hasn't left the floor. He feels a tap on his shoulder and whirls around, ready to ask Lance what the fuck is going on before he faceplants into a very broad chest.

The chest steadies him with hands on his hips as Keith looks up from where his face was blessedly nestled into pecs, into a pair of laughing silver eyes.

“Hey.” Shiro smiles down at him.

“Uh.” Keith replies eloquently, stepping back to take him in. Shiro has a pair of fitted slacks on and a matching black vest along with a tight burgundy button down rolled to his elbows. Between the scent of the food and the meal before him Keith is pretty sure he's actually drooling.

Shiro lifts one finger to the bottom of Keith's jaw and lifts, closing his mouth for him before letting that hand rest on Keith's shoulder.

“Are you hungry?” Shiro asks quietly, tipping his head toward the room behind them.

Keith must have nodded because Shiro guides him over to the table, pulling out Keith's chair before pouring them both a glass of wine.

Keith downs most of it like a shot and pinches himself discreetly.

“Shiro. What?” He doesn't really want to finish that sentence in case the answer is something like 'Surprise, Keith, this is part of Lance's operation to show you how to dress!', but he really, really needs to know how low his expectations should be here.

Shiro's cheeks darken a little as he takes a gulp of his own wine.

“Well,” his voice trembles a little, “I just thought, now that we're back and all... and safe,” he swallows audibly, “that maybe we could... uh maybe have a nice dinner together.”

Keith's heartbeat is roaring in his ears.

“Just a dinner then?” he asks, hoping he doesn't sound any way in particular and failing miserably.

“Well,” Shiro coughs, “Maybe ah, like a dinner... date?”

“A dinner date.” Keith repeats back faintly, “Excuse me.”

He picks up his fork from the table and stabs it directly into his thigh, convulsing slightly. Satisfied he's awake and can feel significant amounts of pain, he places it back onto the table serenely.

“I'd like that.”

Shiro's wide-eyed stare of horror fights with a sort of pleased but confused manic smile as he grabs both of Keith's hands across the table, subtly brushing the knife off the edge. He can cut Keith's steak himself later.

“So. We're dating?” he asks hopefully, still mildly concerned about Keith's leg wound.

Keith's answering smile is blinding.

“We're dating...” he sighs, pulling Shiro's hand to his mouth to kiss his knuckles.

They moon at each other for a few more moments before letting go and digging in as Shiro tells Keith about his planning.

“Hunk was whipping this together all day. He went and tested like three different mac and cheese recipes in jumbo pans so there will be leftovers later too,” he pauses to chew, “He wanted me to tell you he's sorry for avoiding you but can't keep a secret.”

Keith grins at Shiro, “Oh I figured he was hiding something, he was humming the mission impossible theme the last time he ran away from me.” He dabs at his lightly bleeding thigh with a napkin before continuing, “Pidge was in on it too then I suppose?”

Shiro points up at the twinkling drones above them, “Yeah, she was keeping track of you and Lance all day, making sure you didn't see anything before we had it all set up.”

Keith dropps his fork with a clatter.

“Shiro.” He grits out, eye twitching, “You mean to tell me that you sicced Lance on me all day... on purpose?”

Shiro freezes, fork halfway to his mouth before lowering it and holding his hands out in a placating gesture.

“Baby,” he flashes his winning smile, melting Keith's icy heart just a tiny bit, “I only asked him to keep you busy. I have no idea how he did it.” He stroked the back of Keith's hand with his thumb.

Keith closes his eyes and takes several deep breaths, willing himself not to test the fork on his new boyfriend. It bends in his grasp slightly. He reminds himself that this is the happiest day of his life, that he finally has the man of his dreams on a date, a romantic dinner that had been put together with blood sweat and tears. Mostly his own.

He blows his breath out and smiles back up at Shiro's nervous face.

“It's fine. I love you.”

Shiro's breath hitches for just a second before his smile softenes impossibly.

“I love you too, Keith.”

Just in case, Shiro edges the slice of pie toward him with a coaxing gesture. A little bribery never hurt anyone.

Finishing up dessert with another few glasses of wine felt natural and Keith can't ever remember feeling so relaxed in his life. He scoots his chair over to the other side of the table and tucks himself into Shiro's side, sighing happily and reaching for the last scoop of pie when Shiro's voice rumbles through his chest.

“So how was your day anyway?”

The spoon squealed as it snapped.

 


End file.
